Adaptive CABAC/CAVLC hardware design for entropic coding in H.264/AVC

Entropy coding techniques play a fundamental role in video compression standards, with Context-Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding (CABAC) and Context-Adaptive Variable Length Coding (CAVLC) being key schemes used to achieve efficient compression. CABAC delivers higher compression rates, making it ideal for high-quality video encoding, but with increased computational complexity. In contrast, CAVLC provides faster processing at the cost of a little lower compression efficiency. This paper proposes an adaptive hardware architecture that integrates both CABAC and CAVLC, optimizing resource sharing and reducing computational complexity while maintaining high coding efficiency. The study compares the performance of the two approaches, focusing on trade-offs in compression rate, coding quality, power dissipation, and computational demands. Results demonstrate that the proposed adaptive design improves overall performance, offering a balanced solution.